Diagnosis (genus). Support for this genus is from 57 apomorphies including nine morphological and 48 molecular ones. There are four unequivocal morphological apomorphies: mean number of ventral scales in 5% of snout-to-vent length increased (20: q to r); anterolaterally directed transverse processes on autotomic caudal vertebrae (beta condition) (49: 0 to 1); nasal overlaps lateral edge of premaxilla (77: a to z); and posterior suture of dentary usually pronged (83: a to n). There are 28 unequivocal molecular apomorphies (see Appendix II, Nicholson et al. 2012).

Comment

Synonymy after Peters et al. 1970 and Avila-Pires 1995.

Type species: Anolis auratus DAUDIN 1802 is the type species of the genus Norops WAGLER 1830. Selected as the senior synonym over Draconura Wagler, 1833 by Savage and Guyer (1991:303). Note that this genus also contains fossil species such as Norops electrum (LAZELL 1965), fide NICHOLSON et al. 2012.

The generic name is from the Greek norops = brilliant or gleaming with reference to the bright color of the type species and is a translation of the Latin specific name of that species. In this case, Norops is an adjective used as a noun and is in the masculine gender as indicated by the original describer (Wagler, 1830). Norops is masculine in gender.